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Researchers Set World Record Wireless Data Transmission Rate of 6 GB/Sec Over 37 KM (sciencedaily.com) 72

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Daily: Transmitting the contents of a conventional DVD in under ten seconds by radio transmission is incredibly fast -- and a new world record in wireless data transmission. With a data rate of 6 Gigabit per second over a distance of 37 kilometers, a collaborative project with the participation of researchers from the University of Stuttgart and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF exceeded the state of the art by a factor of 10. The extremely high data rates of 6 Gbit/s was achieved by the group through efficient transmitters and receivers at a radio frequency of 71-76 GHz in the so-called E band, regulated for terrestrial and satellite broadcasting. The circuits are based on two innovative transistor technologies developed and manufactured by the project partner Fraunhofer IAF. In the transmitter the broadband signals are amplified to a comparatively high transmission power of up to 1 W with the help of power amplifiers on the basis of the novel compound semiconductor gallium-nitride. A highly directive parabolic antenna emits the signals. Built into the receiver are low-noise amplifiers on the basis of high-speed transistors using indium-gallium-arsenide-semiconductor layers with very high electron mobility. They ensure the detection of the weak signals at high distance. The transmission of high quantities of data by radio over large distances serves a high number of important application areas: the next generation of satellite communication requires an ever-increasing data offload from earth observation satellites down to earth. Supplying the rural area and remote regions with fast Internet is possible as shown in the trial. Earlier this year, engineers at the University of Illinois were able to set a record for fiber-optic data transmission, transmitting 57Gbps of error-free data at room temperature.
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Researchers Set World Record Wireless Data Transmission Rate of 6 GB/Sec Over 37 KM

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  • Units (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23, 2016 @09:07PM (#52168795)

    GB/sec != Gb/sec -PCP

    • Yup, maybe ~700MB/s (megabytes a second.) But "does transmitting a whole CD in a single second" sound as good?
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      And over a distance of 37 Kelvin-Mega!

      Science really does push the boundaries of what I thought possible.

      • Look, asshole, I happen to know someone who made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, so don't getting all unit-Nazi around here!

        • Look, asshole, I happen to know someone who made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, so don't getting all unit-Nazi around here!

          Yeh, and he shot first.

        • Re:Units (Score:4, Funny)

          by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday May 23, 2016 @11:21PM (#52169217)
          Depending on what the Kessel Run actually is, that statement might make sense. If it were something that required a lot of tricky navigation, a shorter total distance traveled could well be an indication of skill as opposed to someone who was less skilled and had to take a longer path.

          It's probably not that, but it's salvageable if you try real hard.
          • by Anonymous Coward

            That's tenuous retcon garbage to try to cover for George Lucas's lack of knowledge.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            It's probably not that, but it's salvageable if you try real hard.

            Imagine a "shuttle run" type race where your carrying capacity is being measured, kind of like running Moonshine. Boasting that completing the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs would imply that the Millennium Falcon has a high carrying capacity.

            Captcha: beholds

        • by Anonymous Coward

          I thought it was 14.

      • And it's 37 km, not 38. Speed of light is so slow that 38 km would have made a huge difference.
    • by rossdee ( 243626 )

      and are those Gigabits (1,000,000,000) or Gigibits (1,073,741,824)

    • How many Cowboyneals per hour is it?

    • If that can be commercialized, then AT&T and the others will have 10x bandwidth to sell. No, you won't get a discount. Never give a captive client (sucker) any even break.

  • by killfixx ( 148785 ) * on Monday May 23, 2016 @09:16PM (#52168829) Journal

    Pedantic? Yep!
    Necessary technical detail? Yep!

    How necessary? 8 times as necessary!

    6 GB/s is fucking awesome!

    6Gb/s, not as impressive.

    • Pedantic? Yep!
      Necessary technical detail? Yep!

      How necessary? 8 times as necessary!

      6 GB/s is fucking awesome!

      6Gb/s, not as impressive.

      But if Comcast was selling it as a service, they would cap you after 3 seconds of full bandwidth use.

      • If you consider most people are probably getting a speed nearer 25mb/s for their DSL and 100-200mb/s for their home wifi, then 6Gb/s is still pretty impressive over that distance, even if it is not GB/s. This could be really good for a mesh network, where you could be sharing videos with neighbours in a rural community.

        • It's very impressive indeed. Wireless point to point at that frequency is magical. We used to think 5GHz was heady stuff when we were developing the 802.11 specs. That's p-mp, but still, the front end devices dictate what's possible.

    • Ah, thanks, I thought DVDs were getting bigger there for a second...or 10 seconds I guess.

    • Unfortunately capital-B meaning bytes is not universal in all industries. In telecom I can't think of any time you would measure a data rate in bytes, it's usually the bit rate and sometimes the symbol rate.

      • But, in telecom do they capitalize it?

        Verizon doesn't:
        http://www.verizon.com/home/fi... [verizon.com]

        AT&T doesn't:
        https://www.att.com/internet/ [att.com]

        So, who uses B when they should use b?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      6Gb/sec could be very useful for providing broadband to rural areas.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Pretty obvious from the article that this is a single antenna. Wait until this is transferred to an ASIC and has multiple antennas. It could reach up to 24Gb/sec possibly. Of course won't have the same distance, but won't be surprised if this scales to over 20Gb/sec indoors. This is HUGE breakthrough. Congrats to all those involved with this!

    • by bosef1 ( 208943 )

      As the summary says (and no-one has contradicted), this experiment used a directional parabolic antenna to improve the performance of the data transmission. Along with parent, I am not really all that excited until they can get the same performance with either multiple antenna or an isotropic radiator to give 4-pi steradian coverage (or so). Having a point-to-point link is nice, but I can do that with lasers and microwave beams already.

  • Hey? Did anyone else notice the headline is wrong?

  • Great so now you can blow through your entire year of data in like 14 seconds of transfer, and AT&T can charge you like $10K in overages in less time than it takes to dial up support. T-Mobile will of course still offer unlimited data provided you don't actually transfer any because that will 'endanger' the stability of their network and you will be disconnected, plus incur premature contract severance fees. Cricket will of course offer a budget plan geared towards seniors who won't know any better. Tra

  • 6Gbps is about 2TB / hr.

    Just put a 3TB HDD (or lots of DVDs) on a car and drive to the destination in half and hour, and you've achieved more than double the bandwidth :-P

Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek

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